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ETER COOPEK, 



T\i9 Good CiHz^B- 






PETER COOPER. 



PETER COOPER. '^*"' 



THE GOOD CITIZEH, 



REV. W. SCOTT. 




" To the weig-ht of precept, biography adds the force and efficacy of example. It 
presents correct and beautiful models, and awakens Ihe impuJse to imitate what we 
admire. By the recorded actions of the great and good, we rei'ulate our own course 
and steer, star-guided, over Ufe's trackless ocean."— Ltdia H. Sigourney. 

" Were public benefactors to be allowed to pass away, like hewers of wood and 
drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and enterprise would be deprived of 
their most coveted distinction."— SiK Henkt Englefield. 



New York : 
CHURCH AND HOME PUBLISHING CO , 

721 East 141st Street. 
1888. 



COPYRIGHT 

BY 

CHURCH AND HOME PUBLISHING CO. 

1888. 



BEDELL, PRESS, N. Y. 




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PETER COOPER 



THE GOOD CITIZEN, 



BoKN IN New Yoek, February 12th, 1791. 
Died in New York, April 4Tn, 1883. 



BY REV. W. SCOTT. 



It is a false estimate of greatness that the world makes when it 
calls him great who lifts axes against the thick trees. He is the 
great one who plants the trees and preserves them, that they may 
throw a welcome shade over earth's weary ones. It is not the Na- 
poleons and the Csesars and the Alexanders who destroy men, but 
it is the Oberlius and the Vincent de Pauls and the John Howards 
that are the gi-eat men of this earth, and Peter Cooper was among 
them.— Hoicard 'Jrosby, D.D. 

His was emphatically the good, gray head that all men knew. — 
Harpefs Weekly. 

Peter Cooper was born on Little Dock Street, near Quincy 
Slip, now part of Water Street, in New York city, in 1791. 
New Y^ork then had 30,000 population. Its northern limit 
was Chambers Street, and the wealthy families resided at 
Bowling Green. The present City Hall Park was a garden. 

His father had been a lieutenant in the Revolutionary 
army. He later kept a small hat store in New York with 
only moderate success. It is said he had too little perserver- 
ance and ambition to make a prosperous man of business. 

Peter's mother, the second wife of Mr. Cooper, was of 
Scotch descent. Her father, John Campbell, had been con- 



nected with the Revolutionary army and had spent a consid- 
erable private fortune in the patriot cause. He had also 
been an alderman of the city. 

His daughter was educated among the Moravians of Penn- 
sylvania. She differed much from her husband, and pos- 
sessed great energy and sweetness of disposition. 

At the time of Peter's birth the family, consisting of nine 
children, was very poor. The father began a series of 
changes, in the hope of improving their condition. He 
removed his family successively to Peekskill, Catskill, thence 
to Newburgh. He followed hat making, kept a country 
store, brewed ale and manufactured bricks. In these re- 
movals and business changes the fortunes of the family, 
instead of improving, declined. 

The early life of his son Peter was one of hardship. He 
began to work as soon as he was able. He learned to make 
hats, delivered kegs of ale to his father's customers, and 
worked in his father's brickyard. His school advantages 
were very slight. He attended school every other day for 
one year. At the age of seventeen, by industry and econ- 
omy, he had saved ten dollars. One day, being in New 
York, he invested his money in a lottery and lost it all. In 
after life he thought this experience one of the best lessons 
he ever received. 

Peter, now seventeen, came to New York to seek better 
opportunities, and found employment in a carriage shop. 
He became an apprentice, receiving twenty-five dollars and 
his board per year until his twenty first 'year. The young 
mechanic had already learned habits of industry. His 
deportment and devotion to his work won the confidence of 



his employers. His inventive faculty also manifested itself 
at this time in contriving an apparatus for making hubs, on 
principles used in later inventions. 

During these years the young man became proficient in 
wood-carving for carriages. By working at leisure hours he 
■earned good wages and increased his slender income. The 
solicitations of fellow apprentices to visit the saloons and 
places of evil resort never seemed to influence him. His 
spare money and time were devoted to work and self- 
improvement. Books were bought and private teaching in 
the evening secured. Thus the earlier lack of school oppor- 
tunities was remedied. This experience also showed him 
the value of evening schools. It is said he now began to 
form the resolution to make money to build an institution 
for the free instruction of working boys and girls. Forty 
years later the New York State Legislature passed an act 
*' to enable Peter Cooper to found a scientific institution in 
the city of New York." Thus his apprenticeship was spent. 
At its close his employer said : 

" Peter, you have done good work for me. I will build 
you a shop and set you up in business for yourself. You 
may pay me when you can." This offer the young man de- 
clined. He was unwilling to start encumbered with debt. 

The next two years he worked in a woolen factory at one 
dollar and a half per day, good wages at that time. He in- 
vented a machine for shearing the nap from cloth. The 
machine was patented and very profitable, for the war of 
1812, then in progress, created a demand for domestic 
cloths. His prosperity had now fairly begun. He soon 
accumulated five hundred dollars. On a visit to Newburg 



he found his father and family embarrassed by debts which 
they could not pay. He promptly relieved them of their 
most pressing debts with his five hundred dollars and became 
surety for the balance, paying them all in due time. At the 
close of the war the cloth trade declined because of the im- 
portation of foreign goods, and his invention ceased to be 
profitable. The same principle was later used in grass mow- 
ing machines, one of which Mr. Cooper made long before 
they were generally manufactured by others. 

In 1813, at the a^e of twenty-two, he married Miss Sarah 
Bedel, of Hempstead, L. I. Their wedded life extended over 
the long period of fifty-six years, until 1869, when the wife, 
a woman of rare qualities, died. Of their six children, four 
died in childhood, two, Ex-Mayor Edward Cooper and IMrs. 
Sarah Amelia Hewitt, survive both parents. 

Peter Cooper, after trying the furniture business for a 
time, started a grocery, at the corner of the Bowery and 
Rivington Street. The store was soon moved to near the 
junction of Third and Fourth Avenues, then known as " The 
Old Boston Road " and " The Old Middle Road." 

One day John Vreeland, then a prominent hardware mer- 
chant in the city, Called at the store and suggested to him 
the purchase of a glue factory which stood on the present 
site of the Park Avenue Hotel. It was fitted for a large 
business, but had been mismanaged and was greatly run 
down. He acted on his friend's advice, bought the building 
and a twenty years' lease of the ground for two thousand 
dollars cash. 

Peter Cooper was now thirty years old and he had been 
nine jears in business. He had been carriage maker, wool- 



carder, inventor, cabinetmaker, grocer; he now became a 
glue manufacturer. To some extent he had disproved the 
proverb, "A roUing stone gathers no moss." Every change 
resulted happily. Every move was an advance. 

The glue, then made in America, was generally very poor. 
Most of it was imported and sold at high prices. Mr. 
Cooper studied the matter thoroughly, made many experi- 
ments and soon produced a better glue than was imported. 
He quickly built up a large trade. He did the same with 
isinglass, then chiefly supplied from Russia and extensively 
bought in this country. 

For thirty years Mr. Cooper carried on this business 
almost alone. He was himself book-keeper, clerk, agent, 
salesman. Up at daybreak, factory fires started, he 
was ready for work. Afternoons he drove to the city and 
made sales. Evenings he passed with his family or in attend- 
ing to his books and letters. He practiced strict economy 
and reaped $30,000 profits a year. He kept talking about 
his school and meantime became a rich man, as wealth was 
then measured, with a large surplus capital for investment. 

Opportunities to invest soon came. He was urged to 
become a part owner in lands in Baltimore. His partners 
proved unreliable and he was obliged to take the entire 
property on his hands. The lands were unprofitable and to 
secure some return he built iron works and manufactured 
charcoal iron. He became interested also in the Baltimore 
and Ohio Bailroad, of which only thirteen miles were then 
built. The difficulty of running an engine around the many 
sharp turns on the road discouraged the company and they 
thought of abandoning the project. Mr. Cooper built a. 



8 

locomotive which would run on the curves and himself served 
as engineer on the trial trip. Thus the matter was decided 
and the road pushed forward to completion. 

In 1845 his factory in Williamsburg burned down ; loss, 
$40,000 ; no insurance. The news was brought to him early 
in the morning. Orders were at once given for clearing 
away the ruins and by nine o'clock lumber for a new and 
larger building began to arrive on the ground. 

Mr Cooper extended his interests in iron manufacture. 
He erected factories at Trenton, N. J., and started various 
other enterprises in iron. He was the first to manufacture 
railroad iron in this country and to make iron beams for 
fire proof buildings. 

He became an extensive employer of labor. In his iron, 
mining and glue business 2,500 men were engaged. In the 
various panics and periods of financial stringency, which 
occurred during his long business career, the workman 
never failed to receive his hire promptly. 

Before leaving Peter Cooper's business life, a few 
additional statements respecting his inventive genius may be 
allowed. When a lad at home he learned how to make 
shoes by ripping an old shoe to pieces. Thereafter he be- 
came the family shoemaker. As an apprentice in the car- 
riage factory he contrived a machine for making hubs and 
showed that compressed air might be used as a motive 
power. Sixty years ago he made a model of a mowing 
machine on the general principle of those now in use. The 
same principle was utilized in the nap- shearing machine he 
invented when working in the wool factory ut Hempstead. 
After the birth of his first child the young father made a 



11 

self -rocking cradle with a fan attachment to keep off flies 
and a musical instrument to soothe the baby to rest. The 
right to manufacture cradles of this kind he sold to another 
party. When De Witt Clinton was completing the Erie 
Canal, Mr. Cooper invented a plan fcr propelling boats by 
using elevated water power and a series of endless chains. 
Its iDracticability was demonstrated, and Governor Clinton 
paid him $800 for the privilege of using it on the Erie 
Canal. It is a curious fact that it was opposed by the 
farmers along the route, who wished to sell hay for the 
horses employed in moving the boats. Other inventions 
sprang from his fertile brain, some of which, as one for 
reducing iron ore, have proven very successful. 

Peter Cooper was early and actively interested in the 
development of the telegraph. Thirty years ago he was 
president of the New York, Newfoundland and London Tele- 
graph Company. He took part in the first experiment in 
ocean telegraphy — the laying of a cable across the Gulf of 
St. Lawrence. It failed, but led to future success. During 
the series of trials and disappointments connected with the 
laying of the transatlantic cable he, with Cyrus W. Field 
and others, never faltered. 

We tutn now to refer to the founding of the Cooper 
Union with which the name of Peter Cooper is indissolubly 
joined. He will be longest remembered not for his genius 
for business or his public career, though both of these were 
most honorable. His highest fame will be, as he doubtless 
wished it, in connection with this great benefaction, the fully 
realized idea of his life. As has been stated, the hope of 
doing something for the education of struggling youth was 



12 

a dream of his apprentice life. It was later an inspiration 
in the accumultaion of wealth. He sought riches to enrich 
the world. In 1828 the idea began to take a definite form. 
Mr. Cooper was then an alderman of New York. A 
gentleman, lately returned from a trip to Europe, told him 
of the work of the Polytechnic School in Paris, where hun- 
dreds of young men obtained access to lectures and instruc- 
tion. To some extent this became the basis of the institu- 
tion he purposed to give to his native city. In 1859, the 
building and all necessary arrangements having been com- 
pleted, the Cooper Institute began its bright and successful 
career. Its purpose is thus described on a scroll written by 
the founder and placed in the cornerstone : 

"The great object that I desire to accomplish by the erection of 
this institution is to open the avenues of scientific knowledge to 
the youth of our city and country, and so unfold the volume of 
Nature that the young may see the beauties of Creation, enjoy its 
blessings and learn to love the Author from whom cometh every 
good and perfect gift." 

The value of building, endowment and other gifts be- 
stowed by Mr. Cooper will exceed one million dollars. 

Within our brief limits no adequate description of this 
institution can be given. It embraces free schools of art 
and science, reading room, library, lectures. Thorough 
courses are arranged in mathematics, physical science, litera- 
ture, drawing and modeling, telegraphy, engraving, art. 
The evening schools have an annual attendance of 3,400 
students, and many others enjoy the benefits of the institu- 
tion outside of the regular courses. 

This great work has won the admiration of many, not 



13 

only for the philanthropic spirit manifested by its foundeiv 
but for the wisdom of the plan and the effective manner in 
which it has been carried out. The late Archbishop John 
Hughes said : " I have seen all the gi-eat charities of the 
Old World and in this, and I like this one the best. It is 
not sectarian, and its benefits are broader and deeper than 
all the rest." George Peabody, Matthew Vassar — both pro- 
moters of education — and Richard Cobden, the English 
statesman, and many other great and good men, were 
friends of Peter Cooper, and deeply interested in this work. 

Peter Cooper was a valuable citizen. He served his native 
city as alderman and for twenty-five years was connected 
with the educational system of the city. He was a strenu- 
ous advocate of honesty in the city government, and a friend 
of the public schools. He favored the building of the Cro- 
ton aqueduct and promoted the establishment of a paid fire 
and police department, to take the place of the volunteer 
fire companies and the city's "watch." The welfare of New 
York was ever regarded by him with a keen and intelligent 
interest. 

He became, in 1876, candidate for Presidency of the United 
States, on the nomination of the National Independent or 
Greenback party. The rival candidates were Eutherford B. 
Hayes, Republican, and Samuel J. Tilden, Democratic. He 
obtained a comparatively small vote. Neither himself nor 
his party expected a different result but Mr. Cooper con- 
sented to be a candidate to vindicate certain principles of 
national finance which he held important. 

Peter Cooper, in his age, was a well known and honored 
figure in his native city of New York. In early life he had 



14 

been slight in form and of delicate health, but a temperate 
and active life bad prolonged his days to extreme age. He 
was, in person, tall, with forehead high and broad ; his face 
had a kind and peaceful expression. He usually wore a pair 
of old-fashioned spectacles with green side glasses. His 
long white hair and beard made his appearance most vener- 
able. His simple and cordial manners gave a peculiar charm 
to his society. 

The parents of Peter Cooper were both earnest Metho- 
dists. He was a member of the Unitarian Church, and a 
frequent attendant on the ministry of the Eev. Dr. Bellows 
and later of the Rev. Dr. Robert CoUyer. 

Peter Cooper, having served his generation well, came at 
last to the close of life, and at the age of ninety two entei'ed 
into rest. The Legislature of the State, and many religious 
and civil bodies, by resolutions attested their high regard 
for his character and services. No citizen of New York was 
ever followed to the grave with more genuine public sorrow. 
The funeral procession on its way to Greenwood passed im- 
mense throngs ; the church bells tolled, the shipping low- 
ered their flags at half mast. On every hand were signs of 
the affection which his simple character and beneficent life 
had won in all hearts. 

He most lives 
Who thinks most, lives the noblest, acts the best. 



Church and Home Series of Biography. 



Mart Lyon ; The Christian Teacher. 

Peter Cooper ; The Good Citizen. 

John Woolman ; A Lover of Mankind. 

Sir Henry Havelock ; The Soldier. 

Sir Titus Salt ; A Captain of Industry. 

Dorothy WiNDiiOw Pattison, "Sister Dora;" The English 

Hospital Nurse. 
Elizabeth Fry ; The Prisoner's Friend. 
John Frederic Oberlin ; A Christian Pastor. 
John Pounds ; The Founder of Eagged Schools. 
John Falk ; The Children's Friend. 



Others in preparation. These biographies have been carefully 
■written for popular use. 



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